Snickerdoodle recipe: Soft on the inside and crispy on the outside

Here is a recipe for making the best snickerdoodle biscuits during lockdown.

I am sure there has been a lot of baking and cooking going on during the lockdown period. Each week while staying at home, we have baked some sort of treat we could eat. First, it was an orange cake, followed by an apple crumble cake. This time I was looking for something a little different, and I found snickerdoodles. A little different from the usual cookie recipe, these biscuits are soft and chewy on the inside and a bit crunchy on the outside. They were quite delicious.

Here is a simple snickerdoodle recipe that should be flop proof, except maybe for the shape. We aimed for a round biscuit, but some came out rather oblong instead, but hey, it all goes down the same way.

Method

Set your oven to about 180 °C.

Take out your baking bowl and cream the sugar and the butter together. Then add the eggs and the vanilla essence. Mix until light and fluffy. Now, add the flour, cream of tartar, salt and baking soda until it’s all combined.

Take out a separate bowl and put in the sugar and cinnamon mixture. Some recommend you refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes before making the cookies. This does help when you have to roll into balls. After you have a fair size ball, not too big, roll into the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Make sure the ball of dough is coated all around.

Place onto greased or parchment-lined baking tray. Flatten out the dough ball in the centre a little before placing into the oven. Bake for about 10 minutes, remove and let it all cool down before removing from the baking pan.

Notes

Cream of tartar seems to be what makes the Snickerdoodle, so make sure you do not leave this out. This ingredient seems to be what makes the tangy and chewy biscuit and separates it from your regular sugar cookie. Something to do with how it stops the sugar inside the cookie from crystalizing and becoming crunchy.